[lentulusgracchus]

And you construe the south's obligation to be to take what they want and walk away from what they want, Constitution be damned.

"Take what they want" sounds like you're still pushing the bank-robbery imagery. Which I carefully explained it wasn't, since the South left so much more on the table.

As for access to the sea, the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal certainly provided that -- the latter paid for by everyone.

And no, I don't think the Southerners thought, "Constitution be damned" -- more like "Black Republicans be damned". They weren't going to stay where those people could hurt them -- and very sensibly so.

[Non-Sequitur]

Quite generous, since they didn't have a claim to it. But then they didn't have a claim to what they stole, either.

As for access to the sea, the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal certainly provided that -- the latter paid for by everyone.

Which did the people in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys no good. Or can't you read a map?